Two Decades of Predictive Biology

March 17-18, 2007
at
Boston University
Life Science and Engineering Building
24 Cummington Street
Room B01

This year marked two decades since Charles DeLisi launched the Human Genome Project. It also coincided with his 65th birthday. It was our pleasure to organize a Festschrift commemorating both events, “Two Decades of Predictive Biology,” held at Boston University on March 17 and 18, 2007.

Click here for Conference Program

Organizing Committee

  • Claude Hobson Campbell
  • H. Eugene Stanley
  • Zhiping Weng

Saturday, March 17, 2007

10:15 a.m. Welcome
Robert Brown, President, Boston University
Kenneth Lutchen, Chair, College of Engineering, Boston University
David Campbell, Provost, Boston University

Session I – Moderator: Gyan Bhanot, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Biomaps Institute, Rutgers University

10:30 a.m. Itai Yanai, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Hunter Lab, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
Title:  Chance and Necessity in the Manifestation of Genetic Programs 
11:15 a.m. Zhiping Weng, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
Title: Transcription Factor Binding and Modified Histones in Human Bidirectional Promoters
12:00 p.m. Jill Mesirov, Ph.D.
Director and Chief Informatics Officer, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Title: Knowledge-based Paradigms for Computational Genomics
12:30 p.m. Minoru Kanehisa, Ph.D.
Director and Professor, Bioinformatics CenterInstitute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University
Professor, Human Genome Center
Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo
Title:  Linking Genomes to Biological Systems and Environments
1:00 p.m. Break  

Session II – Moderator: Vladimir Brusic, Ph.D., Director of Bioinformatics, Cancer Vaccine Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School

2:30 p.m. Micah Dembo, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
Title:  Dynamics Of Cellular Traction Forces
3:00 p.m. Boris Shakhnovich, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
Title: Selective Constraints in Evolution of Gene Families and TBP-Dependent Promoters
3:30 p.m. John N. Weinstein, M.D., Ph.D.
Head, Genimics & Bioinformatics Group, LMP, CCR, NCI, NIH
Title: Intergromic Molecular Profiling in Cancer Pharmacology and Therapeutics
4:00 p.m. James Collins, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
Title:  Predictive Biology by Design
4:30 p.m. Chris Sander
Head, Computational Biology Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Title: Biomolecular Networks: Representation, Perturbation and Function

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Session III – Moderator: Boris Shakhnovich, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

9:30 a.m. Gyan Bhanot, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Biomaps Institute, Rutgers University
10:00 a.m. Hanah Margalit, Ph.D.
Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Title: Role of Non-coding RNA in the Cellular Regulatory Netoworks
10:30 a.m. Avrum Spira, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Pulmonary Center, Boston University Medical Center
Title: Developing Airway Epithelial Gene Expression Biomarkers for Early Lung Cancer Detection
11:00 a.m. Douglas Lauffenburger, Ph.D.
Uncas & Helen Whitaker Professor of Bioengineering & Director Biological Engineering Division, Massachusetts Instituteof Technology
Title: Cue-Signal-Response Models for Predictive Understanding of Signaling Network Control of Cell Phenotypic Behavior
11:30 a.m. Charles Cantor, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer, Sequenom
Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
Title:  Sensitive in Vivo Detection of Specific RNA Species
12:00 noon Break

Session IV – Moderator: Lubomir Chitkushev, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Boston University

1:30 p.m. Jay Berzofsky, M.D., Ph.D.
Branch Chief, Center for Cancer Research Vaccine Branch, NCI, NIH
Title:  Engineering Vaccines for Cancer and HIV
2:00 p.m. Matthew Pincus, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Pathology
Pathology Department, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Title: Molecular Modeling of Anti-Cancer Peptides that Block Cancer but not Normal Cell Growth
2:30 p.m. Byron Goldstein, Ph.D.
Fellow, Theoretical Biology and Biophysics, Theoretical Division
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Title:  The Ubiquitous Role of Aggregation in Cell Signaling 
3:00 p.m. Closing Remarks